


Caught in the Midst of the Fire

by SeeEmRunning



Series: Right Now (We'll Stand) [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 17:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9283502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeEmRunning/pseuds/SeeEmRunning
Summary: After the war, Hermione moves to America, where a group calling itself the Champions of Liberty promises to cause trouble.





	1. Welcome Back

**Author's Note:**

> I'll tell you right now that the ending may or may not be rewritten. I'm not completely satisfied with it, but I've been staring at it for days and haven't been able to fix it.
> 
> ETA: Ending rewritten 2/2/2017.

“Are you ready?” he asked her quietly.

“As I’ll ever be,” she said. “You?”

He grimaced. She grinned.

The Headmistress stood, and the dining hall fell silent. “Welcome back,” she said, her voice ringing clearly around the hall. “Before we begin another year, I have a few staffing changes to announce. First, taking the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Jonathan Stroop.”

He stood, acknowledging the applause with a short nod.

When it had quieted down, the Headmistress continued, “And, to teach our Potions classes, we have the youngest Potions Mistress in over two hundred years: Hermione Granger!”

She hoisted a smile onto her face and waved. This applause was punctuated by whispers.

“Other announcements can wait until our dinner is finished, so please, everyone, dig in!”

She sat. Food appeared on the serving lines, and everyone stood to get their dinner.

When they were seated again, Hermione Granger leaned over and whispered, “That wasn’t too bad.”

Jonathan Stroop, formerly known as Severus Snape, sneered. “Wait until your classes tomorrow. They’ll all know your name by then.”

“Is that why you changed yours?” she asked innocently.

“You know why I changed mine.”

“Yeah, but I don’t buy it. Oh, hello!” She smiled at the woman who had appeared behind Snape’s shoulder.

“Hello, Miss Granger.”

“Hermione, please.”

“Hermione. And Mr. Stroop.” A beat of a pause. “I’m Nadya Wilson, Transfiguration. It’s so good to have you here.”

“It’s good to be here,” Hermione said, smiling politely.

Nadya sat next to Snape/Stroop. “So what brings you two here from Britain?”

“Trying to leave the war behind,” Hermione said.

“Ah, yes. The war.” Wilson nodded. “I understand you had quite the role!”

“Not as much as the rumors say,” Hermione said modestly.

“But you _did_ spy on Voldemort?”

Hermione and Stroop both flinched. “Don’t say his name,” Stroop said in a low voice.

“Why not?”

Hermione met her eyes. “He’s not human,” she said simply. “Naming him doesn’t convey how evil he was, how powerful.”

“At the height of the last war,” Stroop added, “he had had a Taboo put on his name. Anyone who dared speak it was murdered.”

“I never heard that,” Nadya said. Hermione hadn’t, either.

“Yes. Well. It’s not a topic we talk about, overmuch.” Stroop sipped from his glass. “So, Nadya, is there anything we should know about our fellow teachers?”

Nadya let herself get sidetracked. “Let’s see,” she said thoughtfully. “Darius, Charms, he’s real serious. Doesn’t talk about himself much. Good teacher, bad conversationalist. He’s sleeping with Lydia, Herbology, likes plants more than people.”

“Who doesn’t?” Stroop and Hermione muttered together.

Nadya grinned. “Lydia’s best friends with Anthony, Arithmancy, who’s been crushing on Bellatrix - Ancient Runes - for years, but she’s seeing Madelyn, Divination.” She prattled on about their new colleagues for the rest of dinner, filling them in on the gossip, alliances and friendships and enemies. They paid attention; who knew when the intricacies of staff relationships would be useful?

After dinner, Hermione went to her office and lab. All of the potions for the nurse’s office - Ilvermorny’s equivalent of the Hogwarts Infirmary - were started, and none needed adjustment for another week. At the request of the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA), she had another two cauldrons of her new Wolfsbane brewing, and planned to teach it to her class of S7s.

It would be interesting going; she was barely older than her S6 classes, and was younger than all of her S7 students. She’d never taught before, unless you counted the dueling lessons with Potter. She had never brewed some of the potions on the seventh-year syllabus of her predecessor. She was in a different country, teaching at a school where anyone treating Mudbloods as lesser was harshly punished, and the word itself was banned; there was a Taboo, and to say it was to be thrown into Alcatraz for three months. She’d only entered the country two days before, following the ceremonial awarding of her Potions Mastery and Order of Merlin (First Class - and watching Snape receive the same award had been the funniest thing she’d ever seen).

She’d had to get out of Britain. After the Dark Lord had fallen, too many had seen her as a heroine, saving the world from the forces of darkness, or else as a traitor, betraying her own kind for a chance at survival. She couldn’t handle it. Snape had been in much the same boat, and he’d even changed his name to avoid the recognition. (Or so he said - Hermione didn’t buy it. Privately, she was betting on his paranoia getting the better of him, and he was convinced that sooner or later there would be a jailbreak and Death Eaters would come after them.) He was now posing as a half-blood who’d joined the fight after he lost his Muggle family to a Death Eater celebration.

Plus, her parents were getting out of Muggle jail, and were petitioning to regain custodial rights. Now matter how remote the possibility, she’d felt the need to get while the getting was good. With the entire school knowing of her past, and as a Slytherin Mudblood who’d turned on the creature most of her housemates’ parents called ‘Master’, she hadn’t fancied returning to Hogwarts for two more years.

Dumbledore had reached out to the American schools for help. Ilvermorny had had two openings, and Snape jumped at the chance to finally teach Defense. Hermione accepted the role of Potions Mistress, bemused that she was becoming a teacher without completing school. The first thing she’d done when she arrived was to take a peek at the other teachers’ syllabi to find out what she needed to know - her position was tentative, and her continued employment relied on her passing the Ilvermorny exit exams at the end of the year. They were notoriously difficult, and a good quarter of the S7 class failed each year. After their first failure, the students were required to pay to repeat S7, and could repeat up to three times before they turned twenty-one. After twenty-one, they could take adult education classes if they wished, and earn the right to carry a wand as an adult. Otherwise, their wand was snapped and they were put on a list to prevent them from buying another. MACUSA took the Statute of Secrecy seriously.

Hermione took a quick glance at her schedule. Tomorrow was the first day of classes, and she’d have first- through fourth-years for every one of her eight blocks. 

Like Hogwarts, Ilvermorny had four Houses that competed to win the House Cup. The Potions classes had two Houses merged together until sixth year, when they all came together as one class. It was a boarding school in a castle. No teaching licenses were required. Students chose electives in S3 and their entire schedule in S6 following exams at the end of S5. Electronic devices didn’t work because there was so much magic in the air (and privately, Hermione hated that; from her increasingly scattered time in the Muggle world, she knew they were doing amazing things these days, including some sort of communication that would send messages around the world in less than a minute).

Unlike Hogwarts, the four Houses were named after animals: Horned Serpent, Wampus, Thunderbird, and Pukwudgie. There was also a heated debate over what, exactly, the four Houses represented: heart, mind, body, and soul, or scholars, warriors, healers, and adventurers. It was a debate that had existed as long as the school itself, or so Headmistress Kaneis Nikephoros had told them.

She had also told them that they were cutting it close, only getting into the country two days before the term started, and that if Albus Dumbledore himself wasn’t recommending them she would not have hired them. It wasn’t the kind of welcoming that filled Hermione with confidence.

She checked and double-checked her notes for the next day. The first time she’d see her younger students each week was theory, and only one block. The second time of the week the class was two blocks long and focused on brewing.

At eleven, she took a mild Sleeping Draught so she could be rested for her first day teaching.

Her alarm buzzed at six. She rolled out of bed, showered, and went to the dining hall for breakfast, where she stared at her plate.

Stroop sat next to her and served himself from the platter in front of them. “You need to eat.”

She swallowed. “I don’t think I can.”

Stroop put two waffles on her plate and drowned them in syrup. “Eat, or I will make you.”

“Wow,” Nadya said, sitting on the other side of Stroop. “You two must know each other pretty well.”

They looked at each other. Stroop leaned back, sipped his coffee, and said in a deceptively mild voice, “We went through a war together.”

Nadya wisely backed off and spent the rest of breakfast telling them about noteworthy students they would encounter, good or bad. Hermione managed to eat most of a waffle, her nerves making it hard to eat at all. It was almost a relief to escape to her top-floor classroom. Light and airy, it was the opposite of the dungeon she’d learned potions in. She’d managed to spell the windows to allow a breeze without bringing in any outside debris - pollen, dirt, animal dander, or anything else nature created could react badly with a potion being brewed. The floor, walls, ceiling, and workspaces had all been charmed to repel anything that spilled. 

Her first period was S1 Wampuses and Thunderbirds. Once everyone was inside, Hermione closed the door, smiled brilliantly, and said, “Welcome! It’s so good to see you all. This is Potions. The first thing we have to do is define what a potion _is._ Any ideas?”

Her first day went smoothly. It was her second day that things got weird.

Her S5s were still a one-block class, but that left seven periods in the day. Her S6s and S7s were three blocks each. She had a one-block break right after lunch, so she could get prep work and other planning done.

In S5, the students had only begun to hear and care about the war in Britain. Her S6s and S7s, however, had learned about the First War in their history classes, and those taking upper-level history had had to keep up on the Second. Her S6 students came in and took their seats quietly, all attention focused on her.

“All right,” she said brightly. “I understand your last teacher assigned an essay on the differences between crystallization, heat-drying, and evaporation. Pass them forward, please.”

When she’d collected them, she turned to place them on the desk. She turned back around to face the class and there was a hand in the air. “Er, can we take roll first? Let me learn some names?”

The hand went down. As soon as she’d finished marking off the roster, she said, “Miss...Willis?”

“Yes, may-yam,” she said. “Ah was wonderin’ whah we had a British teacher.”

It took a moment for Hermione to piece together what she was saying. “Where are you from?” she asked.

“Jowuhjuh.”

“Er. Sorry?”

“Georgia,” one of the other students translated, rolling his eyes. “Never heard a Southern drawl before, Miss?”

“Can’t say I have. I’m sorry, Miss Willis, it may take me a short while to get used to your way of speaking. To answer your question, I’m trying to get away from the war.”

“You were a hero, right?” someone else asked.

She looked at the speaker. “Erm, Mr….Lockney?”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s what the government said. Personally, I did what I felt I needed to do.”

“Did you really spy on Voldemort?”

She flinched. “Don’t say the name!” she almost yelled. To their startled looks, she explained, “The Dark Lord, You-Know-Who, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named - those are what we call him. His name was Taboo in the last war, and saying it….” She shuddered.

“Why not say it now the Taboo’s gone?” Lockney asked.

She stared at him and said slowly, “Mr. Lockney, have you ever stared into the face of evil? Someone who enjoys torture, enjoys murder, gets off on it. Someone who would kill you without a second thought if he knew who you were. Someone who takes pleasure from watching Muggles - No-Majs, I think you call them here? - get what he believes they deserve. Have you ever met someone like that?” Lockney shook his head. “I have. I lied to his face. I took his Mark and made myself a servant to destroy him.

“ _That_ is why I don’t speak his name. I met him. I fooled him. I moved to America because I do not trust Azkaban to hold his true followers, and I know that if they found me I would suffer greatly before they killed me. That, Miss Willis, is why you have a British teacher. Two of them, really, Mr. Stroop moved with me.”

“Are you two together?” a girl asked eagerly.

Hermione blanched. “No,” she said. “We’re not. Now, let’s discuss potions.”

Her S7s were much the same, except they had more questions. After an hour, Hermione gave up on trying to redirect them to potions and just took their questions.

“Are you really the youngest Potions Mistress in two hundred years?”

“Two hundred seventeen. Mr. Donnelly?”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Yes, and that’s an incredibly rude question to ask. Miss Redleaf?”

“How did you fool Vol- er, the Dark Lord for so long?”

“Occlumency and a penchant for lying. Miss Frodley?”

“Did you really make a Wolfsbane variant?”

“I did. We’ll be brewing it later this year, since unlike traditional Wolfsbane it’s simple enough for non-Masters and is inexpensive enough for the school to purchase the ingredients. Mr. Crampie?”

“How old are you?”

“Don’t you know never to ask a woman that?” Hermione hesitated. “I turn seventeen next month.”

“You’re younger than us!” Ashwamp cried.

“I am,” Hermione agreed. “I’ve yet to finish school. Nevertheless, I am a Potions Mistress, which is rare enough to qualify me for this position in a way your past two professors weren’t. Mr. Ordonez?”

“Why did you leave England?”

“It was more all of Britain, really. I needed a fresh start away from the war. Miss Allrunner?”

“I heard a rumor you were married to Stroop.”

“False,” she said, exasperated. “Really, he’s old enough to be my father! Mr. Ballard?”

And so on and so forth, for three hours. Near the end, Hermione said, “And since we didn’t actually get to any potions today, homework will be reading the first three chapters of your book and writing a summary of each of them. Particularly explain the relationship between mugwort and artemisinin, and their uses in potion-brewing. No minimum length - by now you should know how to explain the information without me telling you how much to write, and I don’t want to read a paper written in handwriting three times the normal size. Maximum length ten feet, no novels. Any questions?”

Greeman raised his hand. “How many pages is ten feet?”

She stared at him for a long moment before asking, “How long are your pages?” 

“Um...maybe a foot?”

“Eleven inches,” Allrunner said, rolling her eyes. “Eight and a half by eleven, haven’t you been paying attention?”

Hermione bit back a smile. “You know there’s a ten-foot maximum and your pages are eleven inches long. You shouldn’t need me to work out that math.” The bell rang. “Due next class,” she called over the flurry of students packing away their unused supplies.

She nearly fell into the seat beside Stroop. “Were your S7s as set on talking about the war as mine were?” she asked him.

He smirked at her. “I teach Defense,” he reminded her. “That means the war is _relevant._ ”

She glared. “Did they ask you if we were a couple?”

“Several times. Imbeciles.” He sneered out at the dining hall. 

“You did move here together,” Nadya said breezily, appearing in her now-usual seat. “From the same place, even. You’ve worked together before, and under high-stress conditions. It’s not a baseless assumption.”

“Even so,” Hermione said. “The age difference alone…!”

“Did you just call me old?” Snape asked.

Hermione shrugged. Nadya burst out laughing. A smile tugged at Hermione’s mouth.

In the months since the war ended, Snape had mellowed considerably. At work and in public, he remained the same miserable bastard as ever, cultivating fear; reporters had learned quickly that they would never get a good interview or quote from him, and trying would be worse than useless. One particularly tenacious reporter had been mid-sentence when Snape finally cast a Mouth-Closing Charm and left without casting the counter.

Hermione teased him about that. In private, when they were safely in his office or the lab, he was more relaxed. He was still cynical and acerbic, still disillusioned with the world at large, but his sharp tongue was aimed at the day’s annoyances rather than Hermione. His insulting turns of phrases were wonderful, and Hermione would rant right along with him. She could talk to him about, she felt, anything - including her confused feelings brought about by Viktor Krum’s letters, where he invited her to visit him in Sofia and told her he had a new girlfriend in the same paragraph.

The night following Lucius Malfoy’s trial, where both of them had been called to testify, Snape had offered to buy her dinner. Knowing her alternative was sitting in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place with Lupin and Black, with whom it was difficult to have a real conversation, she accepted. Dinner had been wonderful; Snape understood her, and she understood Snape, in a way no others did. Both had been spies, both were disillusioned, both had seen and done too much to feel fit for polite company. They were rubbed raw from the war, branded by a genocidal would-be dictator, and wounded in ways that could only be healed with time.

They found themselves spending their evenings together more as the summer progressed. Their lives were ruled by meetings and ceremonies - somehow, they had gone from an unlikable man and a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl to confidantes and advisors. Hermione received a crash courses in Ministry politics and procedures, usually by being thrown to the politicians and solicitors. Snape had abruptly been thrust into the spotlight as a heroic spy. Neither of them were comfortable with the roles they were being forced into. 

It was Hermione who had first brought up leaving Britain and finishing school somewhere other than Hogwarts. Less than a week later, Dumbledore had secured them jobs and a travel plan, and a week after that (during which Hermione was officially awarded her Mastery) they had arrived at Ilvermorny to begin their new lives.


	2. Some Wizards

On 19 September, Stroop slid a brown-paper-wrapped box over to her once she was seated. “Happy birthday,” he said quietly.

Hermione blinked at him, bewildered. “You got me a present?”

“Open it,” Stroop said, a small smile quirking one corner of his mouth.

Hermione did as she was told, Vanishing the paper once it was off the box. It only halfway disappeared, and she scowled and tried again.

“Having trouble?” Nadya asked her.

She looked up - she hadn’t seen the other woman come in. “That’s the trouble learning just from books,” she said, “there’s a lot of trial and error involved. Oh, bugger, I need to learn how to cast silently by the end of the year, too.”

Stroop quirked an eyebrow. “You didn’t learn that from Pavlova?”

Hermione gaped at him. “Pavlova knew how?” she demanded.

Stroop rolled his eyes. “Pavlova knew everything Dumbledore thought would be useful. That included casting silently.”

“Who’s Pavlova?” Nadya asked.

“Ivana Pavlova,” Hermione said. “She was who I became when I spied on Voldemort. We had to create an entirely new person and put her in my head to fool the Dark Lord.”

Nadya stared at her. “You did a _Mind-Break?_ ” she demanded. “I can barely Occlude!”

“It was necessary,” Stroop said, voice low. “We removed Pavlova once the Dark Lord was dead. Granger, will you open it? We have ten minutes before I must leave to prepare the classroom.”

“Oh. Right.” Hermione looked down at the shiny black box and, after a moment of fiddling, slid out the middle. She gasped.

There, in the middle of black velvet, was a silver pocketwatch. Filigree fleur de lis danced around the border; in the middle was a sapphire bordered by petals.

“Seven thirty-three,” Stroop said.

Hermione popped the cover and stared down at it, stunned once again. The face of the watch was a half-full moon made of what looked to be mother-of-pearl. The background was a deep blue stone.

“The face will change according to the moon cycle,” Stroop told her. “Seven thirty-four.”

Hermione popped out the stem and wound it to the correct time. “Stroop,” she said faintly. “This is too much.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “It is tradition to receive a watch on your seventeenth birthday.”

Hermione felt her eyes fill with tears and blinked rapidly. “Thank you,” she choked out.

“It’s just a watch, Granger,” he said, sounding exasperated as he handed her a tissue.

She wiped her eyes. “Thank you,” she said again. “You’ve done - so much for me-”

“No more than I would for anyone else, I assure you.”

“That’s a lie and you know it. You would _not_ have changed continents for just anyone.”

“Not just anyone, no,” he said. “But someone your age who was in danger? I would.”

“Even Potter?”

“Ugh,” Stroop said. “Even Potter, as spoiled a brat as he is.”

“He’s really not that bad.”

“He really is.” Snape scowled. “Why are we discussing Potter?”

Hermione shook her head. “Thank you,” she said again, carefully clipping the watch to her robes.

Slowly, they adjusted to Ilvermorny. Stroop was much happier teaching Defense than he’d ever been teaching Potions. Hermione ordered texts used for Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Charms, and Transfiguration, determined to complete her schooling in time to take the exit exams at the end of the year. She also learned how to send letters via Floo, keeping up her correspondence with Viktor - once a letter reached his home in Bulgaria, someone forwarded it to wherever he was playing Quidditch.

Halfway through October, during lunch, the conversation somehow turned to dueling. Hermione said, “I’m so out of practice.”

“I’ve been feeling that way myself,” Stroop said. “We haven’t needed to fight in several months.”

“Duel each other, then,” Nadya said cheerfully.

“You up for it, Granger?”

“You know it, Stroop.”

And that was how they ended up facing each other in empty classrooms every Saturday. Stroop also began to teach her Legilimency, casting silently, and some of the spells he used that weren’t in the standard curriculum for Ilvermorny or Hogwarts.

To her surprise, Hermione took barely an hour to learn how to cast basic spells silently. Stroop had expected it, and told her so - her mastery of Occlumency at a young age spoke to a strength of will that would make silent casting easier to learn. He also hinted that wandless magic was something she might like to attempt, though simple spells like putting out a candle or closing a door were the limit of all but the most powerful.

Hermione also made quick progress in Legilimency. It was just past the threshold of Occlumency; instead of creating barriers, she created spears. Stroop never complained, but downed headache potions quite often.

In November, just before the American holiday of Thanksgiving (which, Hermione had gathered, was quite controversial), Headmistress Nikephoros approached them with a request. After a quick discussion that took place mostly in their minds, they agreed.

That Wednesday, everyone had the afternoon off from their regular classes. At breakfast, Nikephoros announced, “Today, we have a special event. After lunch, Miss Granger and Mr. Stroop will be in the history classroom to discuss the recent war in Britain. Both received the Order of Merlin, First Class - similar to the No-Maj Medal of Honor or MACUSA’s Exclusive Celebration of Service.” Whispers broke out. “This discussion is mandatory for all S6 and S7 students taking History, and voluntary for the rest of the school. I sincerely hope you will join us.”

After lunch, Stroop and Hermione walked to the history classroom. Neither had been in there before, and Hermione looked around in interest.

Unlike the potions classroom, the history classroom was set up like an auditorium. Tiers of desks all faced the front, where the desk and blackboard were. The history teacher, Bola Minevik, was staring at papers on his desk and shaking his head slowly.

“Hello, Minevik,” Stroop said pleasantly.

Minevik jumped and looked up at them through his thick glasses as they neared. “What are you - oh, that’s right, the British War. I lost track of time.” He gathered up his papers and stuffed them into his bag. “I swear, these students….Do students at Hogwarts pay more attention to history?”

“Our teacher was a ghost who put most everyone to sleep,” Hermione informed him. “Binns didn’t cover anything after about the eighteenth century.”

“That _is_ when he died,” Stroop pointed out. “To him, it was still 1786.”

“How do you know that?”

“I asked him when I was a student,” Stroop explained. “He was very rattled to learn he’d been dead two hundred years.”

“Ghosts,” Hermione muttered, shaking her head.

“Fascinating,” Minevik said, glancing between them. “Someday I _must_ get you to tell me more of Hogwarts.”

“Granger has been there much more recently than I,” Stroop said smoothly. “She is the one to talk to.”

“Wonderful!” Minevik said enthusiastically. “Ah - they’re coming in. You’d better prepare whatever you have.”

And he hurried around them to sit in the front row, quill at the ready.

“Would you like to start?” Stroop asked her.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Hermione said. “You fought the first war, too. You know more about it than I do.”

“Fine,” Stroop said. He raised his voice and said, “Quiet.”

The room fell silent instantly. Clearly he was just as strict teaching Defense at Ilvermorny as he had been teaching Potions at Hogwarts. Even those upper-year students who weren’t taking Defense dropped their conversations.

“To understand the second war, you must understand the first war,” he began. He started talking at them about the Dark Lord’s rise to power and, eventually, his defeat at the hands of the Potter family. “Albus Dumbledore believes that Potter’s survival is a result of his mother choosing to die for him. Personally, I am not convinced. Love is a powerful force, but it is not powerful enough to counteract the Killing Curse. Lily Potter” - his face flashed with an emotion that was gone too quickly for Hermione to identify - “was not the first mother to die for her child, and nor was she the last.

“For fourteen years, the Dark Lord hid and tried to find ways back to power. Three years ago, a loyal servant who had previously faked his death found him and set in motion a plot. Two years ago, the Triwizard Tournament was held, and Harry Potter’s name was entered by a Death Eater posing as Alastor Moody, that year’s Defense teacher.”

Hermione listened as he described the events of her fourth year. She’d been previously unaware of so much; it just hadn’t been on her radar. Sirius Black living in a cave and eating rats, wanting to help his godson Harry Potter (though Snape didn’t put it in quite those terms); Potter watching Diggory be killed; Potter unmasking Moody; Karkaroff fleeing when he felt the Dark Mark burn on his arm, and being killed in a derelict shack less than a year later.

“It was then that Dumbledore turned to Miss Granger. Would you care to explain?”

Hermione swallowed and started the lie she’d prepared. “When I was in third year - S3, to you - my parents died. The next year, the Dark Lord returned. I had no guardian and had been taught Occlumency the year before. Dumbledore called me to his office and said I was ‘uniquely poised’ to assist the Order of the Phoenix, which was working to stop the Dark Lord. He talked me into disguising myself and implanting another personality into my mind, which I could trigger by calling up a special set of mental shields. I was only supposed to befriend Macnair, one of his Death Eaters, but….”

She sighed. “I lost control of it all. This is why you don’t use teenagers for anything important, we mess up all the time. Macnair took me to a Death Eater meeting. I was given a choice: agree to bear the Dark Mark and spy on Dumbledore, or be tortured to death.” In her mind’s eye, Hermione could see the clearing and its jumping shadows. “I was Marked. Most of his followers bear the Mark on their left forearm, but I was to be a spy, so he Marked my leg instead.

“Over the next year - S5, and we were taking end-of-year exams similar to yours - I reported to the Dark Lord and Dumbledore weekly. The Dark Lord assigned me to map out the castle and find a way for the Death Eaters to get in undetected. Dumbledore assigned me to bring back as much information as I could about what he was planning.

“I was called to the Dark Lord’s side during our S5 exams. He was planning to lure Potter away from the castle to kill him. His backup plan was to get into Hogwarts using my map and passageway, and kill Potter there. I’m not sure what his third plan was; he was brilliant, always knowing what he’d do if something failed to occur in his favor.

“The next day, we stopped Potter from running off. Death Eaters and the Dark Lord himself came to Hogwarts. We snuck Order members in through a different tunnel. Dumbledore and Potter killed the Dark Lord while the rest of us went up against the Death Eaters. We won.”

“I would like to emphasize,” Stroop added, “that the Dark Lord attacked a school. The students are aged from eleven to eighteen. Imagine if you were in your House’s common room and suddenly your Head of House came in and told you that you were about to be attacked by the most powerful Dark Lord in centuries. The Gryffindor Head of House was in St. Mungo’s, and so Miss Granger was given the task of not only warning them, but preventing those underage from joining the fight.”

“I had to add locking charms to their entrance,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “Gryffindor’s about bravery, see, and that means they’re the most reckless, idiotic, self-righteous -” She cut herself off. “Anyway. They managed to break them all _from the wrong side of the door_ so Potter could go off on another suicide mission.” A hand popped up. “Yes?”

“Wasn’t your mission also a suicide mission?”

It was a girl who wasn’t taking upper-level Potions, so Hermione had no idea who she was. “At the time I agreed to spy on Macnair,” she said slowly, “I had been...misled about the danger. Once I discovered it for myself, it was too late to get out.”

“Professor Dumbledore is also very good at manipulation,” Stroop said. “If you were not careful, it was...very easy to become entangled. He means well, and never does anything unless he thinks it will benefit the world at large - but he is also more than willing to sacrifice a few pawns to achieve his ends.” He glanced over at Hermione. “I don’t believe either of us have anything more to add, so we can take questions now.”

They answered questions until dinner, mindful of the younger years in the classroom. By the end of it, they were both exhausted and looking forward to a quiet night after dinner.

At breakfast the next morning, Hermione received a letter and a newspaper, which declared in two-inch-tall print that the MACUSA headquarters had been hit with some kind of unknown weapon that caused blast damage similar to but more destructive than the Reducto spell. The _American Herald_ reported breathlessly that the Woolworth Building in New York City had been leveled. The No-Majs believed that it had been a response to their government’s involvement in a number of conflicts in the Middle East (the Gulf War, the Afghanistani Civil War, the Iraqi/Kurdish Civil War, or the Nepalese Civil War - all of which had accompanying timelines, pictures, and major events at the bottom of the page, and a suggestion to look at previous issues for more information). 

Witches and wizards knew better, it proclaimed, and it had been a mixed group of species demanding access to wands and schooling. Goblins, centaurs, elves, banshees, hags, vampires - _and more! Continue to subscribe for full reporting as more information becomes available._

Hermione studied the newspaper, mind whirling. Binns had droned on and on about the Goblin Wars, but had certainly never mentioned any of the other creatures. Their textbook had been more broad and covered a range of creatures’ rebellions against the Ministry - but it was the same textbook Binns had been using before he’d died, and therefore left out several hundred years of history. 

“Why did Dumbledore never sack Binns?” Hermione asked Stroop quietly.

“I’ve no idea,” he said, pouring himself coffee. “If you ever figure it out, let me know, will you?”

Hermione sipped her own coffee. “He left out so much. I may have to ask Minevik for a quick overview of what I missed.”

“Creatures rebelled. Wizards ended the rebellion but changed nothing. They rebelled more. Wizards killed more. Et cetera.”

“So helpful,” Hermione said sarcastically.

Stroop smirked. “Am I wrong?”

Hermione speared a sausage. “Something that’s been bothering me,” she said, changing the subject. “How _did_ the Dark Lord manage to escape death?”

“I suggest you ask Dumbledore. I never got a straight answer from him when I inquired. May I eat my breakfast now, or will you continue to pester me?”

“Fine. Eat.” Hermione put the paper aside and picked up the letter. It was sealed with the British Ministry of Magic emblem, and she slit it open curiously. “Oh! My OWL results are here!”

“And?”

Hermione scanned the parchment inside. “O’s on everything but Astronomy and Herbology. E’s on those.”

“Congratulations,” Stroop drawled.

“Thanks.” Hermione grinned at him and ate her toast.

Christmas break approached quickly. Hermione wrote a letter to Dumbledore and got a reply stating that while he knew how Voldemort (she flinched at the name, even in writing) had returned, steps were being taken to ensure it could never happen again. Hermione was forced to accept that. The air got colder and crisper and snow began to fall as winter break approached.

Snape wore the scarf she’d gotten him the Christmas before, reminding her she needed to find gifts for the rest of the staff. She searched high and low before finding a small shop in Harpers Ferry, not far from Ilvermorny, that held a wide variety of stock. She emerged victorious.

For Stroop, though, she wanted something special. She searched high and low before finding a tea shop and buying a set of black teas. He was always lamenting how difficult it was to find a good cup of tea, and she was fairly sure even he hadn’t ever sampled labrador or kuding. The shop offered small samples, and as odd as they were, they seemed like flavors he might enjoy. She also got more traditional Earl Grey and English breakfast.

Winter break was longer at Ilvermorny than it was at Hogwarts, lasting from 15 December to 31 January. Students were allowed to remain but strongly encouraged to go home, which translated into only one or two students remaining at the school. Even some of the staff went home for the break, and on Christmas Day, Hermione, Stroop, and Headmistress Nikephoros were the only ones to remain. They sat with the students, all agreeing it would be - well, stupid, though that wasn’t the word used - to stand on dignity when there were just five people in the entire building.

A special edition of the _American Herald_ was released on 26 December, announcing that MACUSA had suffered another attack, this time from a group calling itself the Champions of Liberty. It had sent a letter to the paper outlining their goals, mainly universal rights to schooling and wands for all creatures regardless of heritage.

Stroop and Hermione had a long discussion on the pros and cons of allowing all creatures to attend school. Hermione was appalled to learn that in the United States, non-humans and part-humans were forbidden from creating, staffing, or enrolling in any educational institution. Stroop maintained that it was the way the world always had been and should always be.

Hermione wrote a letter of her own to the _American Herald_ , keeping her name off the letter. Hers was only the first of a series printed covering both sides of the issue, all of the writers human. (The _American Herald_ reminded its readers that since it was illegal for anyone other than a witch or wizard to be able to read or write in human languages, it was unable to accept submissions from non- or part-humans without the approval of MACUSA, which had since relocated to a secret location.)

On 1 January, Hermione and Stroop received a visit from a MACUSA Law Enforcer, similar to the British Ministry of Magic’s Aurors. Dmitri Rockledge handed them photographs of the blast sites and samples of the residue found there and asked them to figure out what the unknown weapon was made of. He assured them he had others working on the problem, but they had been unable to find answers in over a month and he was asking more people for help. He also hinted that, if they refused, he would pull strings and make sure they were deported back to England.

Coincidentally, Hermione had her S7s working on identifying the components of a potion the first week they returned from break. She had brewed five potions her students hadn’t made before - Felix Felicis, Pepperup, Mandrake Restorative Draught, Amortentia, and Acne Reducer - and given out samples at random. Each was a different color, so it was easy enough for Hermione to keep track of who had which, but the students were looking at the vials in dismay.

“All of these potions can be found in the library,” she said cheerfully. “However, I would advise against trying to figure out what it is by looking through the books. Each of your potions have at least twenty others similar in physical properties, so if you attempt that approach, it will take you a _very_ long time.”

Her class groaned.

Hermione made progress of her own rather slowly. If she’d had the potion itself, it would have taken her much less time - but since it had been burned, she and Stroop had to compare the results of the residue tests to the results of tests against burned potions ingredients. It was tedious, time-consuming, and usually futile.

When Hermione got her S7 essays back and had read them through, she realized where they were going wrong. She promptly penned a letter to Rockledge asking him if he knew what the potion had been contained in. She got her answer a week later: porcelain glazed with No-Maj enamel.

“We need to be looking at known explosive potions,” she said to Stroop.

“It’s not a known explosive potion, Granger,” he said, holding up a fizzing blue vial and squinting at it.

“No, but it’s probably got some ingredients in common so we can stop shooting blind.”

“Shooting…?”

“Must be a Muggle expression. It means we have somewhere to start. It was in porcelain, so we know it probably doesn’t react to that, or at least not immediately.”

Stroop nodded slowly.

Within two weeks, they had cobbled together an incomplete list of ingredients: sugar, sylvite, salt, hematite, and some unknown binder. They sent off a letter informing Rockledge of progress and asking him to meet them for more details, and he appeared that weekend. Stroop told them what they’d found, adding that while the results weren’t quite right, they were the closest they could find.

“No idea what the binder is?” he asked.

“Unfortunately not,” Stroop said.

“What about you, girl genius?”

Hermione shook her head. “Has anyone else had luck?”

“No. They’ve gotten just as far as you two have.” He grimaced. “Some are still holding out for finding an exact match.”

A thought struck Hermione. “They used a Mug- er, No-Maj material for the casing, right?”

“Yes,” Rockledge said slowly, obviously confused - but Stroop caught on instantly.

“Of course,” Stroop breathed. “They used a No-Maj binder!” 

Hermione said, “I don’t suppose you know of a No-Maj guide to explosives?”

“I can ask around.You really think the No-Majs made something that could take out a building like that?”

“In the 1940s the American government destroyed entire cities,” Hermione informed him. “It was called a nuclear bomb.”

Rockledge paled. “The No-Majs have that?!”

“They do,” Hermione said. “I take it your parents were magical.”

“Yeah,” Rockledge said shakily. “How’d you know?”

“No-Majs learn about that around the age of eight.”

“I’ll get those books for you,” he said, and all but ran from the room.

Snape shook his head. “Some wizards,” he muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pocket watch similar to http://www.flash-watch.com/images/H002_1.jpg


	3. What's Wrong With It?

Rockledge was as good as his word. He returned to the castle the very next weekend, lugging along what looked to be a very heavy bag under a Feather-Light Charm..

“These four,” he said, putting some books in a stack on her desk, “are manuals for designing Muggle explosives. These eight” - he hauled out the rest and stacked them next to the others - “I was told you’ll need to read to understand the - er - kemistrie?”

“Chemistry,” Hermione said, heaving a sigh. 

“I looked through them. You know No-Majs think everything made out of little tiny balls?”

“Yeah, atoms,” Hermione said. “They have microscopes - kind of like telescopes - that can see them. What do wizards think everything’s made of?”

Rockledge opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I don’t know that anyone’s ever thought to find out. Most just assume that things are what they are.”

Hermione glanced at the stacks. “Well, thanks for bringing them.”

“Of course. Between you and me, I’d rather talk to you than Stroop.”

She was startled into a laugh. “He has that effect on people.”

“Not very social, is he?”

“No,” Hermione said, opening a book entitled _The IDIOT’s Guide to CHEMISTRY_.

“Well, anyway,” he said awkwardly. “That should get you started. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.” He leaned in closer. “Between you and me, MACUSA’s thinking about putting guards on the major schools.”

“Really,” Hermione said. “Because of the - er - Champions of Liberty?”

“They’re one reason,” he hedged. “Be careful, Miss Granger.”

“I always am,” she said, and once he’d left her office, she settled into her desk chair to read.

It took her fewer than three chapters to become hopelessly lost. She started over, taking notes this time, referencing the other books. It was interesting, there was no doubt about that, but there was so much specialized vocabulary and so many concepts that almost-but-not-quite dovetailed with accepted Potions theories. So busy was she with learning at least the basics of No-Maj chemistry that she was quite surprised to receive the paper one day and discover they were already halfway through March.

“How did you miss Valentine’s Day?” Stroop asked, bewildered. “Darius turned the walls pink!”

Hermione shrugged. “I thought it was a student prank.”

“And the number of people snogging in front of you?”

Hermione pointed at the open book next to her plate. “I’ve been a bit distracted.”

Stroop peered at the book, which was open to a diagram with a lot of arrows that claimed to show something called a “mechanism of reaction”. “What is that supposed to be?”

“How atoms rearrange themselves in a potion,” she said. “A lot of this we know happens, just not why. If we combined Muggle chemistry and our Potions, who knows what we could come up with?”

“I’ll leave that to you,” Stroop informed her, and went back to his breakfast.

It didn’t take long for Hermione to find the simple spot-tests to check for common materials. Shortly after that she discovered a machine called a GC/MS, which would show her exactly what was in a compound - what Muggles called potions. Or mud.

She went to Harpers Ferry that weekend and started asking around for where she could find one of those machines. Most people had no idea what she was talking about, but a few suggested she try one of the nearby universities. She knew enough to know she was going to need some help to get access to relatively new, fiddly, expensive equipment, so she returned to Ilvermorny and sent a letter off to Rockledge asking to meet.

The next night, she looked up from her S5 Wampus essays on the uses of moonstone when she heard a knock on her office door. “Hey,” Rockledge said.

“Come on in,” she invited. “Have a seat.”

He closed the door behind him and tried to wave a Secrecy Spell at it. He looked confused when the mist, instead of sinking into the wood and vanishing, wavered above the wood and collapsed before it disappeared.

“First thing I did was ward the office,” Hermione informed him. “Nobody can hear us unless they’re inside. If I don’t want them in here they can’t get through the door.”

“That’s some heavy warding.”

“I have some enemies.” Hermione smiled humorlessly. “You might have heard.”

Rockledge winced. “Right.” He finally sat. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Hermione explained what she wanted. Rockledge rubbed his chin and thought for a minute. “I can try,” he said doubtfully. “Granger, do you really think that’ll work?”

“Worth a-”

Someone knocked on her door. Hermione pointed her wand at the door, removing the locking charms that kept everyone else out, and called, “Come in!”

Six S3 Thunderbirds burst in. “Miss Granger, we had a question about dragonfly thoraxes,” Amelia Turner began. Her eyes fell on Rockledge, and she faltered. “Oh - sorry - didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s quite all right,” Hermione reassured them.

“That’s my cue to leave,” Rockledge said, hoisting himself from his chair. “Granger, if you think it’ll work, I’ll see what I can do?”

“I think it will. Thanks, Rockledge.” When he was gone, she looked at her students. “Now, what’s this about dragonfly thoraxes?”  
***  
 _Got an opening. Silverstone University, 7PM Friday. Rockledge_

Hermione got the note on Wednesday at breakfast. She grabbed a Never-Out Quill from her bag and scribbled back, _See you there. Granger_ , attached it to the leg of the owl who had waited for her reply, and returned to her sausage. It was different than the bangers she was used to, but still good.

“Good news from Rockledge?” Stroop asked.

Hermione looked at the dining hall, at the noise and the crowd and the sheer number of people, and said, “I’ll tell you later.” If he was wanting to talk about sensitive things in front of a crowd, maybe he was distracted by something. It wasn’t like him.

They left lunch early and made their way to Stroop’s office, idly discussing school matters like they were just two old friends shooting the breeze. The moment the door closed, however, Stroop said, “What did you find out?”

“Muggle technique called GC/MS could tell us what the binder is,” Hermione said. “You doing okay?”

Stroop looked at her in a way that was known to make Hogwarts first-years burst into tears. “Why?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “You usually don’t want to talk in public. What’s distracting you?”

“Nothing,” Stroop said coldly. “If that’s all you had to tell me, I do have marking to get to.”

Hermione turned back to the door, debating with herself. Before she turned the handle - while the wards were still in effect - she said, “Snape...you’re all the family I have. If you need anything-”

“I said I have marking,” Stroop snapped.

“I’ll let you get back to it, then,” she said. “If you want to come, meet me at six-thirty tomorrow in my office.”

She broke the wards and walked out. Now she was _sure_ something was wrong, or Snape would have caught on right away that her sentimentality was out of character and reacted to it. He hadn’t - he’d behaved as he normally did around emotion. She just had to figure out what was wrong and fix it.

_Easy_ , she told herself. She knew the man better than anyone on the continent - perhaps better than anyone on the planet. She should be able to figure out what was bothering him.

Headmistress Nikephoros gave her the closest Floo node to Silverstone. It was in Dulles, Virginia. She made sure to dress in Muggle clothing - flowery jeans and a blue blouse - before she went whirling through the flames.

She landed in a pub that looked similar to the Hog’s Head in Hogsmeade. Unlike the Hog’s Head, however, there were no hags or vampires hanging about. Every single one of them was conspicuously human.

It was a short walk to Silverstone University. March in the mid-Atlantic was chilly, and Hermione bundled up in a coat, gloves, and a hat. Even so, her face was frozen by the time she reached the gates. Rockledge was waiting for her.

“Crimson Flower?” he asked.

“Eh?” She leaned closer to hear him better.

“Did you come through the Crimson Flower?” he repeated.

“Yes. Where are we headed?”

“Science and Technology Building. My contact’s meeting us there.” He waved a piece of paper. “I have a map!”

“So you do,” she said, mouth quirking.

“It’s weird. Nothing’s moving,” he complained.

“They don’t know how to do that,” she reminded him. “Lead the way.”

Rockledge’s contact turned out to be a solid, balding white man in suspenders and slacks. He smiled toothily at them and said in a pleasant German accent, “Good to see you again, Dmitri. Who’s your friend?”

“Hermione Granger,” he said. “Miss Granger, this is my Uncle Albert. He teaches chemistry here.”

“It’s good to meet you,” she said, reaching out to shake his hand. She peered closer at his face put him somewhere in his mid-sixties.

“And you. Dmitri says you need to use a GC/MS - don’t you usually do something else?”

“Usually,” she agreed. “This is...unique.” She glanced at the people hurrying around them. “Let’s talk inside?”

Albert No-Last-Name led them inside. When they were in a lab, Rockledge pulled out his wand, but Hermione caught his wrist. “Magic and electricity don’t mix,” she reminded him. “We just have to hope nobody’s listening.”

“Why don’t they mix?” Albert asked curiously.

“No idea,” Hermione said, releasing Rockledge. “I haven’t had much time to look into it, and I haven’t the background in No-Maj sciences.”

“You know what a GC/MS is,” Albert said. “That’s more than most, from what I’ve gathered.”

“I only started looking through chemistry books in February,” she told him. “Everything I know I’ve learned in the last two months.”

“More than I know, Granger,” Rockledge said, shedding his knee-length coat. “Let’s get this over with.”

Hermione gawped at him. “Er - what are you wearing?” she asked, trying not to laugh at the strange ensemble he had on.

He looked down. “What’s wrong with it?”

Albert burst out laughing at that. Hermione shook her head. “Skirts are only for women,” she informed him. The printed trousers he had on underneath were fine, but the sparkly miniskirt he had on over them would draw attention if anyone saw it. “And the shirts are….” She trailed off, trying to find a kind way of explaining that wearing four singlets underneath a sports bra and metallic green jacket was just _bad_.

“You stick out like a sore thumb,” Albert said, wheezing from laughter. “And you’re wearing a bra!”

“So?”

Hermione shook her head helplessly. “Someone needs to teach you to dress,” she said. “Put your coat back on, if someone walks in they’ll call the bobbies.”

“Bobbies, huh? That what they call the cops where you come from?” Albert asked.

“If ‘cops’ means ‘police’, then yes,” Hermione said while Rockledge pulled his coat on again. 

“Let’s just get this started,” Albert said. “Do you have the compound?”

Hermione pulled a vial from her coat pocket. “It’s burned,” she said. “We have some idea of what’s in it, but there’s a binder that we don’t have.”

“Let’s see what we can do,” he said, taking it from her and leading them to the counter. “This is our GC/MS,” he explained, and talked them through the whole procedure. He worked deftly, and soon he was putting the needle of a syringe into a rubber-covered hole and injecting the dissolved residue. Then he clicked something on the computer next to it - Hermione hadn’t ever seen a computer before, and itched to get a closer look, but restrained herself. Within two minutes a graph was being printed.

“Now we just compare it to the standards,” he explained, pulling out a thick, glossy binder. “This might take me a while.”

It took him just under a half-hour. Hermione sat next to him, watching him work with some interest. Near the middle of the book, he found a graph that he studied closely. Hermione did, as well, and found something interesting.

“They didn’t just use a No-Maj binder,” she breathed.

“They used one of our explosives entirely,” Albert agreed. “This is preliminary - we’d need IR and HPLC to be entirely sure - but it’s a good place to start.”

“We know what some of the ingredients likely were,” Hermione said. “Hematite, sugar, sylvite, salt. They weren’t exact matches, but they were close.”

Albert’s eyes shuttled back and forth as he thought. “Iron, chlorine, sugar, and potassium chloride,” he said slowly. “You could make a rough version of C4 with that. And C4 is what this graph shows.”

“So it’s C4,” Hermione said triumphantly.

“Um,” Rockledge said. “Dumb Enforcer here. What’s C4?”

“A No-Maj explosive,” Albert said. “Generally kept for military use. I’d suggest asking around to see if any of it’s been stolen lately. It’s not difficult to make, though, so they might have done it themselves.”

“They can’t read human languages,” Rockledge said. “How could they have found out how?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure most of them had to learn at least the basics just to survive,” she pointed out.

“Why can’t they read?” Albert asked.

“Because MACUSA, in its infinite wisdom” - there was clear sarcasm there - “decided to ban any and all non-humans from education and practicing wand magic. Not surprising they’re rebelling again.”

“You can’t agree with them!” Rockledge said.

Hermione scowled. “Less than a year ago I was fighting a war with people who wanted to keep _me_ from being educated and owning a wand. Why _wouldn’t_ I agree with them?”

“What?” Albert asked, utterly baffled.

Rockledge ignored him. “It’s different!” he insisted. “You’re human. They’re not.”

“The Dark Lord thought I wasn’t human,” she reminded him. “Lesser beings. Dirty blood, remember?”

“But he was wrong!”

“And you’re wrong now!” Hermione snapped back, mindful that there were no silencing spells on the room.

“ _You’re_ wrong!” he yelled, apparently forgetting they were in No-Maj territory. “They’re vicious and stupid and they’re killing us!”

“They said the same things about me, and keep your voice down.”

Rockledge shook his head. “Uncle Albert, thank you for your time,” he said formally, and walked out of the room.

Albert looked at her warily. “What was that about?”

Hermione sat back down and explained. When she was done, Albert rested his chin on his fist and said thoughtfully, “So they want to keep the creatures down.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“I’m just an old hippie,” he said, “but it seems to me you’ve got the right of it. No-Maj history is full of governments doing what yours is now, and it never ends well.”

“Our history’s full of it too,” Hermione agreed miserably. “So many rebellions, so many deaths, and the government’s too stupid to end it.”

“That’s the way of government,” Albert agreed. “It was so nice to meet you, Hermione. I’ll talk to his mother, remind her what happened when we lived in Germany.”

“What happened in-” Hermione cut herself off. “ _Oh._ ”

Albert nodded gravely. “I was six when we got on that train to Buchenwald, and twelve when we were freed.”

“I’m sorry.”

He waved it off. “It was a long time ago. I hear you prevented something similar from happening to your own people.”

“I tried,” she said. “One cog in a machine, to borrow a phrase.”

“There is a poem by Martin Niemoller. 

_In Germany, they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;_  
And then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;   
And then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;   
And then, they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up. 

“I understand you spoke up. You’re speaking up now. Keep fighting, Miss Granger.”

“Hermione, please.”

“Keep fighting, Hermione. Now, back to the matter at hand - what is it you intend to do now you know it’s C4?”

“I’ve no idea,” she admitted. “My job is...similar to yours. I teach and I research - er - compounds and - syntheses?” She winced. “The comparisons aren’t perfect.”

“What is chemistry called in your world?”

“Potions.” She half-smiled. “I wonder what we could create if we mixed them together.”

“I suppose we’ll have to find out.” Albert grinned. “Where would you like to start?”

“I should get approval first,” Hermione admitted. “I’ve no idea how MACUSA will react, especially with the rebellion going on.”

“Let me know when you do,” Albert said. “I’m quite eager to get started.”

“As am I,” Hermione said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your surname?”

“Schweitzer,” he said promptly. “But please, call me Albert. With any luck we’ll be working together soon.”

“Until then, Albert,” she said, shaking his hand again.


	4. Suffer

The next week she set her S7s to brewing the Wolfsbane variant. They’d had so many questions for her - why she’d chosen it, how she’d done it, how long it had taken her. She answered as patiently as she could and finished with, “Nobody had done it before because they didn’t care. Werewolves are wolves one night a month, but the way they’re treated, they might as well be monsters. That’s why so many joined the Dark Lord - he promised them status and a chance to make a living. Traditional Wolfsbane is expensive and complicated, so not many can afford it. This version is cheaper and easier to make, so as it becomes more widely known, my hope is that more werewolves will be able to control themselves and the stigma surrounding them will decrease.”

She hesitated before continuing, “You’ll find that a good deal of what you’re taught is influenced by the social climate. You’re taught about goblin rebellions as though the reasoning behind it is incomprehensible, you’re taught Wolfsbane is the only thing between you and a slavering monster, you’re taught that there’s a clearly defined line between Light and Dark Magics. Everything is black and white, because shades of grey are too difficult for adults to comprehend, so how can schoolchildren have any hope?” She shook her head in frustration. “But then, I’m a bleeding-heart hag-lover, as a recent op-ed in the _American Herald_ so charmingly said. Just keep in mind that you should always, always question what you hear and why you’re hearing it.

“Anyway, to make the Wolfsbane variant, you’ll need the following ingredients.”

By the end of the three blocks, they’d all managed a reasonable recreation of her work. She flicked the cauldrons into the connected room and told her students they’d need to sit at least a week with frequent stirring. The doors would be kept unlocked.

Minevik stopped behind her chair at dinner that night. “Did you know I’ve been teaching my S7s about evaluating the news?” he asked mildly.

“No, I haven’t heard.”

Minevik grinned. “Your little lecture fit in nicely, so thank you. Their last homework assignment was to write a satire piece about a piece of news, and one person decided to write about you.”

“Me?”

He handed her a piece of parchment, now openly grinning.

_LOCAL GENIUS FUCKS UP BY BEING TOO COMPETENT_  
Does Too Well at Shady Assignment, Is Accidentally Initiated Into Terrorist Group  
BY Laura Ashwamp 

“Oh, dear,” Hermione murmured, looking up to try to find Ashwamp in the teeming hordes.

“Keep reading,” Minevik urged, dropping into the usually-empty seat beside her.

_Hermione Granger, a teenage girl known for being the youngest Potions Mistress in over 200 years, is reported to have infiltrated a well-known terrorist cell under the control of Dark Lord Voldemort._

_“It was an accident!” she wailed at press time. “I was just supposed to befriend one of his followers, and the next thing you know I’m spying on my headmaster and telling Death Eaters how to get into the castle to kill the students!” She drains a bottle of Firewhiskey and says, “What? It’s the best remedy for the Cruciatus Curse!” When reminded of the multitude of potions that exist for just that reason, she says defensively, “Those have too many side effects.”_

_Granger has reportedly been tortured at least a dozen times for failing at tasks the Dark Lord gave her. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named claims, “If she would just do as I ask, she wouldn’t be tortured!” Casually casting a Cruciatus Curse at another of his followers, You-Know-Who adds, “It’s hard to find good help these days.”_

Hermione stared at the page, torn between laughing and being horrified. “Ashwamp,” she said at last.

“I thought it was funny,” Minevik said tentatively.

Hermione shook her head, a distant smile on her lips as she pushed it back over to him. “She’s got the Dark Lord’s reasoning down, in any event. He did not suffer fools.”

“Most Dark Lords don’t,” Minevik agreed, taking the paper back.

Hermione did her best to put the homework assignment out of her mind. Over the month of April, Stroop grew less and less social, coming down to meals only infrequently and ignoring Hermione when she knocked on his door. She was worried about him. From what she heard from the students, he was getting downright nasty, treating everyone like scum and making many of the younger students cry.

When she heard that, she marched right to his office and pounded on the door. “I know you’re in there,” she called. “Open the door, Stroop!”

Nothing happened.

Hermione scowled and pulled out her wand. Stroop had taught her most of what she knew of wards; it was the work of minutes to add exceptions to them to allow her through. She got through the door and closed it behind her, activating the Silencing Spells.

“All right,” she said, folding her arms and frowning at the man behind the desk. “I’ve been patient. I’ve been nice. But there’s something wrong.”

“No there isn’t,” Stroop said, not looking up from the papers on his desk.

Hermione marched over. “If there wasn’t a problem, you would have known I was mucking about with your wards and stopped me.” She glared at his still-bowed head. “You’re not eating, you’re making students cry, and you’re not careful with your privacy. _What is going on?_ ”

“Get out of my office, Granger.”

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.” She leaned on his desk. “You know me, Stroop. I can help you.”

“I don’t need help!” he yelled, finally looking up. His face twisted in hatred, and she took an involuntary step back. “Merlin, Granger, you have no sense of when to stop pushing! I’d have thought you’d learned that from your parents!”

Shock coursed through her, followed quickly by fury. “You bastard,” she snarled, and stormed from the room, not bothering to close the door behind her. It was petty, but making him close the door was the only revenge she could get at the moment.

She was barely aware of students scrambling out of her way as she went to her rooms.

Rather abruptly, it was May, and the exit exams were looming over them. Hermione received a letter from MACUSA’s No-Maj Relations Department forbidding her from working with Albert Schweitzer. She immediately started plotting a way around that.

The more immediate issue, of course, was the exit exams. Three periods a day twice a week was a lot of time for Potions, so she pared Potions review down to two periods and left the third for a mixed review. Her students told her the other teachers were doing much the same, knowing that any attempt to keep teenagers focused on a single subject for three hours was doomed to failure.

The mixed reviews were as helpful for Hermione as they were for her students. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Nadya that learning solely from books meant a lot of trial and error.

Stroop avoided her. After their last conversation, she didn’t try to talk to him again.

The second week of May, the Champions of Liberty struck again, destroying the Non-Human Liaison Department - by now the only government building to not have Creature-Repelling Spells layered over it.. The government feared that they would attack human schools next, and so four Enforcers were assigned to Ilvermorny full-time. Rockledge wasn’t one of them.

Exit exams took place the first week of June. Hermione studied herself sick, worried that in two months’ time she would be unemployed. She needn’t have worried: the tests were more advanced than the OWLs, but not by much. The night her final exam ended, she and Nadya went to Harpers Ferry for a drink. A group of drunk men stumbled over Nadya's body that night, but Hermione Granger was nowhere to be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Satire headline comes c/o LazyTurtle, who commented on the last fic.
> 
> If I write more, they'll probably be short crossovers with movies, TV shows, books, etc.


End file.
